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Friday, 05 October 2007

I haven’t had any holidays in 14 months now. In August I requested to take two weeks in September. No, I was told. Couldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen until the end of the project I’ve been working on for two years.

In September they announced further delays to the project. Couldn’t I take some holidays then? Maybe, I was told. We’ll talk next week.

Next week became the week after. Then the week after.

Now the project end date has been postponed to mid-February. Could I please take some time off before then? Probably, I was told. We’ll talk next week.

So, ya, I’d like to go away near the end of October. I’d like to, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get to.

Today New Chick Littlebabycryingpants e-mailed me. She wants to take holidays at the end of October, but can’t if I won’t be around. She needs to know ASAP whether I will be.

My response: haven’t you used all your time up already?

Now she’s snotty because she’s only used six days so far this year. And she’s entitled to take more time off, so she’s going to.

Oh right. The other 40 or 50 days she’s had off so far this year have been sick days, mental health days, personal days, lieu days, slacker training days, and completely pointless days for going to conferences unrelated to her work.

You want to take away the only days I might get to go on holiday? Bite me.

Friday, 28 September 2007

I have been yelled at by several people for one of Mimi's oopsies, then was made to listen while the boss blasted her and demanded she explain how she would avoid screwing up in future. She stammered and grovelled. How much longer before I can just have her job already?

I have yelled at the webmaster for an online competition that's part of one of my classes. He, however, is an idiot; yelling at him is pointless. My grade is dependent upon doing well in a contest the rules for which are on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

The guy who sits next to me has endless conversations with his girlfriend. For example, in one he repeatedly apologised and tried to explain that the traffic on Mount Pleasant was really not his fault. No, please stop crying. Later she called to ask whether it would be acceptable to wear a skirt and top to a wedding or if she would have to wear a dress. These are immediately followed by calls to his buddies to complain.

The woman on my right spends the day talking and muttering to herself. She also gives the most banal, insipid economics-for-retards lectures. Littlebabycryingpants thinks she's brilliant.

Tuesday, 03 April 2007

In the beginning there was... No, that's not right. Let me start again.

In the beginning I had one boss, and I knew not where I stood with him. But behold it has come to pass that I now have 817 people who think I work for them, and I am certain of my standing in their eyes.

Monday, 26 March 2007

So... My lawyer says I should already have started the insurance-getting process. Gee, thanks for telling me that, jackass. He says I can't get the mortgage without proof of insurance. Again, thanks for the notice. And of course, he says, it takes several weeks to get that in place.

I'm enjoying this process.

Oh, and just for good measure, his secretary asked the question again: Who's going to be on title with you? I need your husband's name. I don't seem to have made note of that in my file.

As to insurance... Now that's kind of interesting. If you live with with more than two people you are not related to, then you can't get insurance. No way, no how.

Fine. I live with two people (fingers crossed so it doesn't count).

And how are those people related to you?They're not.I don't understand.They're not related to me.What do you mean?The people I will be living with, they're not related to me.Oh, so there's two separate units in the house?No, they'll be living with me.What? Like sharing the house?Yes.I need to talk to my supervisor. Please hold.

Once we got past that issue, we discovered that there were more we might not be able to get past.

The short version is that the last insurance agent I spoke said she thought it was likely that some insurance company that might provide me with coverage, but there's no way of knowing.

The big issues seem to be the electrical (which I am having upgraded after I take possession of the house but before I move in) and the roof (which is flat). These are Big Deals. Deal-breaker big deals.

I might be in a better state of mind for dealing with this if only I were sleeping properly. Three weeks of nightly apocalyptic dreams have left me feeling OH SO SLIGHTLY UNRESTED and maybe just a bit disgusted with life, the universe, and everything.

Monday, 26 February 2007

On top of everything else, Typepad just ate my whole post. So this is me trying to remember it and getting lazy with it by abridging the hell out of it.

I applied for a mortgage, right... I got a nice official-looking form from the bank with all the details completed, saying that they agreed to lend me the money. It was signed, dated, and all that. I signed it back, saying yes, please. Give me all that money.

Now I'm waiting for them to approve it. Huh?

This makes me confused.

And to make matters more fun... The Ferengi is off for a few weeks, so I'm covering for her. Now granted, the work that takes her nine hours a day takes me two. But still, that's two hours I haven't got. And for some reason Mimi is off this week too. So, I get to cover for her while I'm at it. And New Chick came in three hours late today because she had a doctor's appointment.

You know what could make this even more fun? How about a big fat assignment for accounting, economics, and marketing? Why don't we make that due for Friday night since everybody knows part-time students haven't got anything else to do, the lazy slobs. Actually, I am a slob. Okay, and I'm lazy. Whatever.

Thursday, 22 February 2007

It wasn't very busy yesterday, so I ducked out after putting in my requisite nine hours. It was beautiful and sunny out as I walked home. When I was nearly there I spotted Bakka, Toronto's only sci-fi bookstore.

Since I'm going to be moving out of the area in two short months, I decided I should take advantage of it while I could. I crossed the street and —

SPLAT!

From my new vantage point of being down on my hands and knees I saw what I'd missed a second earlier. The pavement was covered with a layer of partially melted ice.

I stood up and spent a moment contemplating the pain in my left knee. I looked down. Crap! I had just torn a hole in one of my two good pairs of dress pants. And my knee was bleeding.

I'll spare you the details of the futile (and unrelated) trip to the emergency ward of a nearby hospital later that night.

Hi, remember me? We met a week and a half ago at an open house. You are not the seller's agent, you are her lackey, there to do her work for her because she is too important to work on Sunday. You made a great impression by being 30 minutes late to a two-hour open house.

The following day, I began the process of attempting to purchase the property, a process which is still ongoing.

Yesterday you e-mailed me. You began your message by addressing me as Mrs Sars. What the hell is that, I ask you. When we met you made a point of asking me if I was married, like I shouldn't be allowed to buy a house without my husband's permission. You made a big deal of the fact that I said I was single. So, no, I am nobody's Mrs. I despise being addressed as Mrs. Seriously. But even if I were somebody's Mrs, I'm completely unacquainted with the practice of adding the honorific to a person's given name.

So, there you go. Right there in the first line you've doubly pissed me off. Then in the second line, using most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish grammar imaginable, you informed me that you were pleased to meet me yesterday at an open house on a street I've never even heard of.

You went on to tell me that it was okay that I didn't like that house as you've got plenty of other options for me. You included a selection of houses within 'my' budget that you thought I would like. They were all conveniently located in proximity to the Official Mall of Loudmouthed, Illiterate Teenage Mothers (it's a big shopping mall without so much as one book shop!).

Thank you so much for taking the time to follow up with me. It's very kind of you. Now piss off.

Thanks,Sars (not Mrs)

PS: Tell your boss lady that... Well... Never mind. She'll get a few posts of her own if this process ever ends.

Wednesday, 08 November 2006

I remember one of my teachers in high school telling us that VISA was evil. VI is the Roman numeral six. S is — I don't know — the Babylonian numeral six or some such. A is the whateveran numeral for six. So VISA really means 666, and 666 means Evil, so VISA is Evil.

I always gave this theory about as much credence as I did the whole Procter-and-Gamble-is-Evil theory. Except that, well, Procter and Gamble really is evil. But that has nothing to do with hidden messages to Satan in their logo and everything to do with the way they treat animals and the environment.

Anyways, VISA... Evil...

The other day — as in the morning after I worked a 15-hour day with no breaks and much stressed-out shouting — a lovely rep from VISA called me to inform me that my payment was slightly past due.

I don't know about you, but I never pay attention to due dates. I make my payments, and have a very good credit rating, but I pay things when I get around to it.

So, chickie-poo starts telling me that I have an obligation not only to pay things on time, but also to provide her with detailed information RIGHT NOW as to when, where, and how I will be making my next payment and precisely how much it will be for. Like I need some $15 an hour high school dropout to tell me how to live my life... [cough... Bitch. cough...]

Logically, I yelled at her and hung up on her. Because that's what I do...

15 seconds later, my phone rang. I ignored it. The next day I picked up the message. It was, of course, the same chickie-poo. She was just calling to confirm some recent transactions on my card.

A day after that somebody else from VISA called. She reported my account to the fraud department, saying that she thought it had been compromised. They've cancelled my card. I called and talked to somebody in that department. Of course, there was no questionable activity on the account. But the card's still cancelled. And now I have to wait for a new one to come in the mail.

So, I guess the moral of the story is don't go messing with the VISA people. They'll have their revenge, and you'll be mildly inconvenienced for about a week as a result.

Tuesday, 03 October 2006

New Chick nearly ran into the boss in the parking lot one morning last week. This earned her a stern lecture on the importance of safe driving habits. I might've been amused if she'd actually dented his shiny, expensive SUV with her beat-up old Neon. Ya, she drives a Neon. Loser...

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I had to buy a dryer and a vaccum in one weekend. I don't even own a house (yet), and I already own a comically ancient dishwasher, a late-model washing machine, a four-month old fridge, and — hypothetically at least — a brand spanking new dryer. Oh, and a non-functional dryer. Also, when did vacuums become the sort of thing that need to be replaced every two years. This is my third one. I'm getting tired of this process.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

While trying to post an online room-for-rent ad on a free bulletin board, I got a notice informing me that I could be fined 'more than $10,000 for each discriminatory ad' if I used any 'discriminating' statements. Their samples of banned statements include: 'hispanic area', 'christian household', 'no kids', and 'prefer student'.

Ya... I live near Chinatown, Little Italy, and Little Portugal. I will not live with children. I prefer to keep the household balance at a 1:1 male-female ratio. Gee, gosh, Martha, I hope nobody sues me for that!

Valentine could get me in real trouble as she is vehemently predjudiced against canine people.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I asked my parents if they could help me out with the downpayment for the house. The idea was that if I borrowed part of the money against their house, I could make a larger downpayment, thereby qualifying for a lower interest rate and less insurance. It would mean making two payments per month (one to my bank and one to theirs), but would work out cheaper in the long run. I said they didn't have to, but I'd appreciate it. They agreed to ask their bank if this was possible.

Then Bubble procrastinated.

She finally got back to me yesterday. She had some big story about why it wasn't a good idea to do it that way. She said it wasn't financially in my best interest (which it is). I asked her about a smaller amount (which would have a similar but smaller effect). She hemmed and hawed.

I started to see things more clearly. If you didn't want to do it, you could have said no in the first place! There was no need to keep stringing me along for two months. You could have said no.I didn't want to do that. I felt it was only fair to do some research first.

That's mother-speak for I was hoping the bank would say no for me so that my hands would be clean.

Monday, 10 July 2006

Every month I go to my landlady's bank to pay my rent. My student line of credit is through the same bank, so I thought I came up with a great plan to avoid queuing up for endless hours every month. I can transfer the funds from my TD account to her TD account. Then I can just write myself a cheque, and deposit in an ATM. Easy as pie, right? No more standing in line.

I should have known better than that. This is one of the Big Banks. Nothing is ever that simple.

On the web, the instructions are clear.

To set up and pay a Personal Payee, simply call EasyLine at 1-866-222-3456.

That's all. It says you need the payee's full name, branch number, and account number. That's it. I phoned the number. I waited in a virtual queue instead of a literal one. Eventually, my call was answered. We went through the usual rigamarole of security questions. Those answered, the CSR asked how she could help me. I explained that I wanted to add a personal payee so I could pay my rent on the internet.

This is where it got weird.

CSR: Okay, I just need you to answer a few questions first. Do you have any automatic monthly withdrawals coming out of this account?Sars: I thought the monthly payments were coming out of there, but it turns out they're going from my chequing account.CSR: [sounding annoyed at having to explain] All right... I guess I wasn't clear. Do you have any automatic monthly withdrawals coming out of this account?Sars: [mildly bemused] I guess you didn't understand my response. I thought I did, I was wrong.CSR: [now openly hostile] You aren't understanding the question. Do you have any automatic monthly withdrawals coming out of this account?Sars: [sigh] No.CSR: And what is the purpose of this account?Sars: It's a student line of credit.CSR: What rate of interest do you pay?Sars: What? Um... Prime plus one or prime plus half. I don't remember.CSR: Are you presently employed?Sars: What does that have to do with anything? All I want to do is pay my rent.CSR: [At this point, if she could have teleported herself through the phone line to garot me with my phone cord, she would have] I asked you if you were presently employed.Sars: [sigh] Yes.CSR: And who is your employer?Sars: [click]

So, I'm back to standing in line again. I mean, what the hell was that? I wanted to pay my rent, not apply for another line of credit!

Thursday, 06 July 2006

I got up this morning, got dressed, and looked in the mirror. I was pleased with what I saw. My hair was looked like I had actually done something with it (not that I had, mind you). My clothes fit well, and were pretty stylin'.

I left the house smiling.

I got on the streetcar, still smiling. Somebody stared. Just jealous, I thought. Then somebody else stared. Um... Then everyboday was staring. WHY ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT ME? Go back to staring at your own shoes! It's the Toronto way. You're not supposed to make eye contact. You never make eye contact. You stare at the ground because — darnit — that's what people do.

Okay. So, I didn't really shout that. But I thought it.

Then I got to work, and I got on the elevator. Another woman got on with me. She was tiny and perfect. She had awesome hair. And her clothes were perfect. And her body was smokin' hot. And her shoes were sizzling hot and pointy enough to do damage.

And I looked down at me. And down. And down. And down. I am eight feet tall! And twiggy. And my shirt is faded and rumply. And all my sentences start with 'and'.

Anyways... I totally stole this photo from the hot librarian, who is also much cooler than I am. I think it might be me, even though I'd never wear a cowboy hat.

Tuesday, 27 June 2006

Before you say one more word, stop! Ask yourself if what you are about to say is stupid enough to cause me to go into a blind, convulsive coma. In such an eventuality, the nice paramedics will come and take me away to a hospital, where doctors will prescribe some drug-induced rest.

And guess what that will mean for you...

Ya-huh. It means you will be stuck doing this job by yourself until New Chick gets back from Ibiza. You think you can handle that? You think you can tell your arse from somebody else's elbow long enough to do this job on your own?

I woke up this morning, reached over and grabbed my glass of water from the nightstand, and stood up. Then I wobbled, and tipped my glass of water into my beside lamp.

I got dressed and ready, and then went into the kitchen to get the dogs' breakfast. I dropped all the kibble and the wet, sploshy oatmeal onto the floor. Then I dropped two very expensive bottles of pills into the mess.

I left the house, and walked through the pouring rain to the streetcar stop. I waited an inordinate amount of time before the overly crowded vehicle arrived.

Upon my arrival at work, the Ferengi proceeded to ask me a series of nonsensical questions, and then berated me for not answering them immediately.

I sent an e-mail to a co-worker congratulating him on his promotion, only to receive a cranky, snippy response. I then found out that what appeared to be a promotion was in fact a politically motivated sideways motion with a downward bias.

Monday, 08 May 2006

Are all Tim Hortons' employees required to be stupid? Is it part of some sort of government-sponsored Jobs for the Mentally Deficient campaign?

On Thursday, I ordered a large coffee and a 20-pack of Timbits, honey dip only. The cashier poured me a medium coffee, and asked if I would like assorted Timbits. No, honey dip only, please.

On Friday, I went to a second Tim Hortons. I ordered a large coffee and a 20-pack of Timbits, honey dip only. The cashier asked me if I would like an assortment of Timbits. No, honey dip only, please.

On Saturday, I went to the Tim's closest to my house. I ordered a 20-pack of Timbits, honey dip only. The asked if I would like assorted Timbits. No, honey dip only, please.

On Sunday, I went to the third Tim Hortons again. I ordered a large coffee and a 40-pack of Timbits, honey dip only. The cashier asked me if I would like an assortment of Timbits. No, honey dip only, please.

Today, I went to the first Tim Hortons again. I ordered a 20-pack of Timbits, honey dip only. Do you think you know where this is going? Well, you don't.

The cashier blew me away. She didn't ask if I wanted an assortment of Timbits. She just popped the box, and assembled the order.

I paid and walked back to work. I opened the box, ready to dig into my delicious snack.

Only...

The box is full of an assortment of Timbits, all flavours except honey dip.

Please head directly to the nearest hospital for immediate sterilisation. It may be all 'wrong' and 'immoral' for me to cause you bodily harm, but you can at least do future generations a favour by not reproducing.

Friday, 07 April 2006

Last week I went to orientation night at school. We sat through presentations by various departmental staff, faculty members, and alumni. The presenters all had different topics and points of view, but they each had two common points to make.

Alcohol is a very large and important part of the MBA experience.

Our spouses will be our lifelines. They will be our only connection to life outside school and work for the next three and a half years, and we should be extremely grateful to them for their support.

Well, ain't that just swell. You know, I knew I didn't meet the whole you-should-really-have-an-undergrad-degree-before-you-start-a-post-grad-programme requirement thing, but I didn't even know that marriage was a given.

For 17 friggin' thousand dollars a year, they should provide one for those of us who don't have our own already.

Then I looked around the room. There seemed to be a whole lot of rings flashing in the fluorescent lights.

Most of the work we do in the programme will be done in groups. We were assigned our groups last weekend. And guess what...

Ya, you know what I'm going to say, don't you? The others in my group: all married.

Maybe I can get a big L painted on my forehead. Maybe I can just write a note explaining all the ways in which I don't measure up to the people around me. Whenever I say something that perplexes people or makes them uncomfortable, I can just show them my little apology by way of apology.

Or, better yet, maybe I can scan the overseas classifieds to get me a husband, preferably one who:

is hot;

speaks only a few words of English (or better yet can't speak at all);

cooks; and

cleans.

_____________________________

Update (12.17):I can't afford an American-made model, or one manufactured in any other nation with a reasonably hard currency. I'm looking for the Rs. 500 model.

So, for frig's sake, stop trying to whore yourselves out on my website (unless you really do meet all the criteria).

Monday, 03 April 2006

Sure, you do nice things for people, things that make you seem incredibly generous. But in doing these things for your friends, you step on people who don't matter to you. You don't care who you hurt, so long as you get to do nice things for the people you want to impress.